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Thursday, 2 October 2014

Since my maid left two years ago my life has been in agony. Owh... that's too much of me saying such thing, right? Anyway, having to juggle between active growing up kids, a newborn baby and at the same time working from home, I was devastated. I am in a dire need of a reliable helper.

After months of doing everything by myself, I succumb to the situation. With my husband's permission I hired a weekly cleaner. Actually the cleaners came every fortnightly because I have difficulty arranging them to come on monthly basis plus I was on a shoestring budget. Then when I could no longer cope up I get them to come three times a month... then on weekly basis.

However, there's one BIG problem. I want them to come at the time convenient to me and sometimes they can't make it. And there's another issue. The floor requires moping everyday and I don't have the time to do everything by myself. Especially the sweeping and the moping.

There was a time when the cleaner or the weekly maid as they are called came, they did not do a proper job, ruined my vacum cleaner (the ladies being too rough) and broke my mugs (not one or two!). There are cleaners who really do a good job but I can't have them all the time. If I am lucky, they would be assigned to me.

I... can't stand seeing sticky and dirty floor and yet I can't afford to do it myself.
Sigh....

Then I began toying with this idea...of having a gadget for my home. After a series of searching and thinking I decided to get a robot that can do what I can't do. Reluctantly my dear husband agreed :D. After a series of nagging of course.

Tada... my new helper who does not complain...

First try... My Deebot had to work on two shifts to collect all dust on the first day.

This was from the entire 3-bedroom apartment on the first day.

You see... I put a piece of tissue in the dust container so that I do not have to clean the container every time I empty it. It's a very good tip that the sales person gave us.

Dust collected from my son's room alone on the first day.

A lot of friends asked me how my new 'helper' is performing.

MY VERDICT:

Overall... I think it DOES help me to ease my burden. At least the house, ie the floor now is eye pleasing. And my baby can roam freely and I do not have to worry about the hair, dirt and dust on the floor. At least while I am holding or playing with my baby the robot is vacuuming the floor. Better still, I can just leave it to do its job while I am asleep or if I am going out.

Of course, being a robot it has shortcomings. Not 100% of the debris is sucked. I noticed Deebot tend to miss certain spots but this is maybe due to the time constraints that I myself impose on it. I do not have the patience to wait for the full cycle. However, if you have the luxury of time, just let Deebot to do its job with some monitoring if you must. I have to remind you to beware of certain things:

a) Make sure you put away all things that may get entangled into the robot such as socks and wires (Hp chargers etc) because Deebot will suck everything along its way. Remember, it does not have hands to move things by itself so you have do it by yourself.

b) Make sure the floor is dry because if it is wet, chances are the floor might get dirtier when Deebot is vacuuming. This gadget does not come with mopping capabilities so it will not suck any liquid.

After a month of testing this gadget on daily basis, I noticed that :

i) Just like human being who is new to a new job, Deebot finally managed to adjust and adapt to its surrounding :). I have been observing. During the first week, Deebot sort of 'pening' when it went under a chair or when it was going through furniture. After a month, I realised that it could maneuvre under the chairs and came out by itself easily.

ii) Always ensure that it is charged at its 'home' so that it is ever ready for you to use as and when you need. The good point is, it uses little energy. So you need not worry about your electricity shooting up.

Priced at about RM2400 (I got it at RM1800 at a Renovation Expo in KL), I reckon it is worthwhile. It will break even between 7-10 months assuming you engage a monthly cleaner of RM60 for two-hour per session (KL rate). To me, this gadget is very useful for a house that requires sweeping and mopping on daily basis and it is much cleaner than sweeping and mopping.